Category: Uncategorized

THE greatest danger to America:



[I was commenting over on another blog when that cartoon popped into my mind. The subject under “discussion” (more like cussin’ and dis-cussin’) was the delinking of Glenn Reynolds by some of us who find his comments/blogging less and less useful.  Some, admittedly, are outraged by his lack of wholehearted support for their views. Bah. To me, he’s simply become less and less relevant to the things I’m interested in discussing. And the brouhaha over the delinking, the “sound and fury” from both sides, is also edging toward “bored, now” territory. Besides, nearly all the discussion is irrelevant, anyway. _1_]

But on point: Now, when Pogo uttered those now famous (and often adulterated, even by me 😉 words, he was gazing upon the evidence of human greed, laziness and short-sightedness evidenced in heaps of refuse through which he and his companion had waded in their swamp home.  

And it is that same greed, laziness and short-sightedness which poses the greatest danger to our country today. Let’s consider how that statement applies to some of the issues I consider pressing.

Congress. The Federal “gummint” has its fingers too deeply into darned near every aspect of of its subjects’ lives. Congresscritters as a class (with a few individual exceptions) are the dregs of society: venal, cowardly, intellectually and morally lazy, greedy goons. Wanna argue the statement? Take it to comments.

The courts, especially federal. To judges: get your damned hands off making law! You do NOT have that authority, except by virtue of lazy, cowardly, venal legislator’s ceding of rsponsibility.

Same to bureaucrats. I don’t give one flippin’ fark what your RULES say: what does the LAW say—and if the law says you get to make the rules at your discretion, then the law’s an ass, made by other, worse, lazy, morally bankrupt asses.

Next: voters.  What in the Sam Hill do you lazy, greedy speech-impaired piscines* think you’re doing voting  such venal, cowardly, intellectually and morally lazy, greedy goons into office? Get some backbone and vote the rascals out.

Energy policy. Can anyone see the greed? The short-sightedness? The intellectual and moral laziness? What, really, is keeping every little municipality in America from having a TDP plant processing its raw sewage and other waste into usable commodities, including a light grade petroleum product one stage away from being cracked into diesel and gasoline? Heck, transitioning to a mature energy policy would be simple with enough $10-$15 per barrel oil being manufactured from waste domestically to eliminate dependence on oil from supporters of terrorism. And that’s just one of many technically and economically feasible approcahes being neglected because of lazy, short-sighted greed.

Education. Anyone who’s honest (and who has the background to be able to see and comprehend what’s going on) will admit that public education (AKA “prisons for kids”) is worse than just broken in this country. It’s an unmitigated disaster. Short-sighted, greedy dystopians (education “establishment”, government legislators and buraucrats, teachers unions, “education” administrators); lazy “manufactured idiot” parents; ever more dumbed down kids: gee, there’s nothing to see here.  Move along folks.

Pop “culture”.  Could anything be more coarse, destructive of positive values, morally and intellectually and aesthetically debillitating than MTV/top 40 so-called “artists”? And I’m not even touching television. (Yeh, there are a few bright exceptions to the “television is trash” rule, but since Jeremy Brett died, the exceptions have become more and more… exceptional. Miss ya Jeremy.)

I could rail on, but I think you get the point. The problem being our own (as an American public) laziness, greed and short-sightedness, the solution to all these ills is… us.

*”speech-impaired piscines”=dumb basses

Addendum: yeh, lotsa typos above, mostly letters left out. I plead needing to change the batteries in my wireless keyboard as at least some of the problem (changed now :-), although “buraucrats” may have been my unconscious attempting to type “burrocraps” but being stiffled by my superego (No, not “Super ego”). heh. I’m not going to fix ’em. Those of y’all (which means most of the regular readers of this blog) who can recognize the typos will be forgiving, I hope. For those of y’all who don’t see the typos, I blame your teachers, your parents and you. 🙂

Stole this off Dave Barry’s blog. It wasn’t real clear where he got it from.

It’s not really about $70 per barrel oil. Not really.

Was just filling Lovely Daughter’s car (her first week on her new job: notalotta spare cash hangin’ around her bank account) and the talk at the pumps was, of course, about gas prices, oil, etc.  I just knew I was gonna blog about this…

It’s not really just about oil. It’s about energy policy as a whole. Gasoline and diesel fuels have made sense for a long time, because oil is relatively plentiful, and may be even more plentiful than conventional wisdom has thought for years. So why the apparent shortages—or fear of shortages—driving oil prices and gasoline/diesel prices higher and higher?

“Why” doesn’t resolve into one simple reason. The Saudis and their ilk do need higher prices, not just because they need to make up for monies spent supporting Islamofascist butchers (although that does play a small part in their apparent greed); they also need as much as the market will bear because that’s the only thing they have, apart from generally subliterate mouths to feed and water and a religion of hate to export. Well, unless they find a larger market for their other great natural resource, but there’s just not that huge a market on sand.  Besides, sand’s available worldwide cheaply, anyway.

No, aside from so much of our foreign oil coming from essentially one-product countries, there’s the false upward pressure created by artificially limiting oil production here at home. And here’s where I count strike one against eco-freaks in energy policy. We have more than enough known, and relatively easily developed, oil deposits here at home to supply most, if not all, of our needs for the present and immediate-to-moderately long term needs.  But an unholy alliance of eco-freaks, media asshat know-nothings and (mostly) liberalist political grandstanders have effectively shut that option down for years.

But still, even with those pressures, gas prices haven’t reflected as much of the upward oil cost pressure as they might have because refinery capacity has been able to just barely keep up with demands.  Barely, in spite of the fact that the same unholy alliance of eco-freaks, media asshat know-nothings and (mostly) liberalist political grandstanders (aided by stupidly selfish NIMBYs) have managed to keep any new refineries from being built in the U.S. for nearly 30 years.  And the same short-sighted dimwits have had pretty much the same effect on distribution systems as well.

Strike two for the eco-freaks and their ilk.

Then there’s the asinine, stupid buncha eco-freaks (along with the rest of the luddite cabal) who have managed to keep ANY new nuclear power plants from being built in the U.S. for the last thirty years. Think about it.  While the U.S. has continued to produce a large portion—if not the majority—of its electricity via oil, natural gas or coal (using steam generators, for the most part), more forward-looking countries such as China are building such things as pebble bed reactors by the dozens. (China plans to have 30 or so of the things in use by 2020—enough to meet its own needs and sell power to adjacent countries.) Cluebat: pebble bed reactors are arguably just about the safest, cleanest means available of producing large amounts of electricity economically. China’s no industrial powerhouse and China’s doing it right now. Cheaply.

But economically and safely lessening—or eliminating!—our need for petroleum products for use in electricity generation (even though it would greatly lower airborne pollutants) is anathema to eco-freaks who are apparently genetically unable to listen to facts. So, much of oil production is sucked up into your air conditioning (watch your electric bill soar) and refinery production goes to keep the lights burning, “helping” maintain $3 per gallon prices for gasoline…

But the luddite cabal’s evil work accomplishes more than that. Heck.  Wanna virtually eliminate vehicular air pollution? Burn hydrogen. Oh, but there’s the technical hurdle of containing this fractious gas safely. Done.  That’s just an engineering problem, which is something we have the technical horsepower to handle. Sure, the hydrogen molecules that’d be used for fuel are smaller than the propane molecules that’ve been used in vehicles for 50 years or more, but like I said: that’s just an engineering problem.

No, cars can be built and distribution systems maintained for hydrogen use for cars. But production… gee, ya have to have electricity to crack water to get the hydrogen! Oh! Pebble bed reactors! D’oh!

But eco freaks (and their unholy allies) don’t really want people driving SUVs that produce water vapor as a “pollutant”.  If they did, they’d get outa the way!

*sheesh*

Phasing out most gas burners and phasing in hydrogen burners (or full electric or hydrogen fuel cell or any number of other options) would be easily possible if

• The Luddite Alliance of eco-freaks, media asshat know-nothings and (mostly) liberalist political grandstanders could be shouted down by genuine progressives.
• Crash production of the Alaskan (and other) oil assets put in play
• New refineries built

To transition to

• 50-100 pebble bed reactors built in next 10-15 years
• electric, fuel cell and hydrogen-burning autos and trucks put in production as the electricity production makes such alternatives economically and conveniently available

And that’s just one within-reach scenario.  Want to turn waste into petroleum? It’s being done economically right now in a small way in Carthage, Missouri.  Daily.

Want REAL solar power? If NASA and the Luddite Cabal could be sent to make gardens on the moon (nice quiet gardens, full of lovely, lovely vacuum), we could have solar power beamed as microwaves to earth collection stations. Cheaper than knocking off Saudi Arabia (though not as satisfying).

Could do it now.  But watch.  Mass Media Podpeople will (continue to) pin the blame for the results of 30+ years of congresscritters and administrations bowing to the wishes of Mass Media Podpeople and the other Luddite Cabal members’ wishes.

Phonies, liars and moonbats, Oh my!

Pay your $3 per gallon at the pump, folks. And thank the Luddite Cabal when you do so.

Katrina Relief

Received this from RomeoCat via email.  Check out her blog for more info on relief efforts by  bloggers, ‘K?

“…as my own personal fund-raiser for the Hurricane, I’m donating $5 for every comment on this week’s recipe to Red Cross, and $5 from the Hurricane Relief post to Soldiers’ Angels, if you want to let your readers know…”

Here’s another disaster relief effort I can recommend.  Know some of the folks and a lot of the background. More $$ get to the people via this route (augmented by lots of volunteers on the ground!) than just about any other I know of.

And Basil’s Blog has a meta-roundup (includes others’ roundups) of Katrina relief efforts, too. Good resource. And stick around to read other posts there, why dontcha?

(Yeh, I have NO idea if the Latin’s correct. Latin scholars the world over shudder when I attempt a phrase… 🙂

Delinking Instapundit?  Heresy! *heh*

For anyone who surfs a little off my blogroll (and from some of the blogrolls on email correspondents’ blogs, there are a few, maybe more than I know of), you may notice I’ve delinked Glenn Reynolds’ Instapundit blog. Yeh, well, I don’t delink often—it’s one reason my blogroll’s getting to be nearly impossible for me to surf through in a day—but when I do it’s for one of a very few reasons. A blogger may just seem to have less and less relevance; quality may take a nose dive and stay down; stops blogging, so nothing new to read; stops making sense.

Glenn’s recently touched on a few of these. His linkfest approach is less useful now that NIF and others are doing it in a more entertaining way with sometimes more relevant material. Betsy Newmark, for one, does a better job of extracting interesting nuggets and appending often pithy commentary. Michelle Malkin does a much better job of pointing to critical issues of the day, with much better commentary.

So, I’d been visiting Instapundit less and less often until last month, I notice, I only dropped in once.

And then… I clicked the link found here and read Glenn’s mini-rant in support of the ACLU. *sigh* Yeh, yeh, Glenn, the ACLU has done some good things.  But so?  Even a mass murderer like Hitler can love a dog. Oh! Dear! Did I just draw a comparison between Hitler and the ACLU? Well, there are some few points of congruency between Hitler’s tactics and views and those of the ACLU. For one, their hostility to any practice of Christianity. Both had/have no problem with Christians who don’t act like Christians.  But when the church actually adheres to biblical principles, the ACLU is as virulently opposed to Christianity as Hitler was when Christians acted like they took biblical precepts seriously. Democracy? Hitler despised majority rule (his party never gained more than 40% in an open election) as much as the ACLU, which does all its “legislating” via the courts,  does.

Yeh, there are differences. Hitler had more “success”  promoting his anti-Jewish program.   The ACLU has had to simply work to promote Islamic terrorism (which as a major anti-Jewish element is as good as they can get away with for now, I suppose). The few other differences of substance, I’ll leave aside for now. I’ll also leave the other similarities to the reader to work out.

But Hitler did some good work didn’t he? Yep.  Promoted youth programs. (Come, learn how to bust heads and inform on your Jewish neighbors!) Helped the German economy. (Get those gold fillings! The Fatherland needs them.) etc.

Is this a little over the top?  Well, take it as a meta-commentary on Glenn Reynolds’ mini-rant deriding those who find the ACLU’s success in promoting its communist agenda offensive (there’s an ideological difference to Hitler’s style of fascism for you :-).

Glenn, ya shoulda taken a lesson from Spiderman: “With great power comes great responsibility.”  Heh. Indeed.  (I dunno: was it Spiderman or “Kung Fu Hustle”? 😉

Buh-bye, Glenn.  We never knew you. *Yawn*

Oh, while you’re at it today, why not glean what nuggets you may find in the Stop the ACLU Blogburts blogroll?

This repro (with additional comment) of Jay’s Stop the ACLU post at TMH’s Bacon Bits

Here’s one to check out from Ogre about the ACLU bitchin’ and moanin’ about the Feebs actually doing their jobs.

ACLU+Druids vs Christian cops?  Yep. More at NIF.

And here’s a partial list of Glenn delinkers:

Generation Why?
Cafe Oregano
Social Sense
Kender’s Musings
Stacking Swivel
Gribbit Online
Real Teen
Stop The ACLU
American Dinosaur
Zaphriel’s Blog
Euphoric Reality
Basil’s Blog
Mad Tech
Cao’s Blog
Gina’s Rantings
Jo’s Cafe
NIF
Freedom Of
Jack Lewis
GOP Insight
Sondra K
Blogicus
Palmetto Pundit
This Blog Is Full Of Crap
Ogre’s View
TMH Bacon Bits
Bad Hair Blog
The Astute Blogger
Oraculations
Conservative Angst
Part Time Pundit
Mind Of Mog
E-Claire
Curmudgeonly & Skeptical
NY Girl
Political Yen-Yang
Leavworld
Drink This
Moonbattery

third world county

More later, I suppose…

Bedfellows.  Now there’s an ugly picture. *Aiiieeee! My eyes, My eyes!*

Infamous “Attila-the-Hun right wing” bigot David Duke and darling of the leftist bigots Cindy Sheehan.

“Courageously she has gone to Texas near the ranch of President Bush and braved the elements and a hostile Jewish supremacist media.”–David Duke _1_ (The link’s to a secondary source quoting Duke, cos I’ll NOT give linkage to that racist bigot.)

Is that David Duke or Cindy Sheehan under that Klan attire?

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Addendum: I don’t often bring comments out into the front page, but the following comment is such a perfect example of barking moonbattery that I feel it’s useful this time. Since the author of the comment was moved to state his “opinion” (yes, those are ‘scare quotes’—heh) so strongly, I feel he deserves to have his comment (and my reply honoring his crayon sketch transcribed from his tinfoil hat) made more public:

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that’s rove under the robe…i realize that as a guest i must be polite, but dude..you have been truly hoodwinked. in bush you trusted, now we’re busted. these folks do NOT care about people at all..only egos and money
g babcock | 08.31.05 – 8:35 am | #

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And, of course, my off-the-cuff reply to his barking:

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baaaa-bcock: D’uh-ude, your meds need moderation. Seek professional help, quickly.

With such as you, it’s alllll about Rove. Saddam harbors al-Zarqawi, the first WTC bombers and Klinghoffer’s murderer? Rove made him do it.

bin Laden hates America and needs dialysis? It’s Rove behind both, d’uh-ude.

Golabl Warming? Rove.

Global cooling? Rove again.

Your dog is constipated? Rove, of course.

Cindy spouts the same virulent anti-semitism as one of America’s most despised racist bigots? Rove did it!

“A jug of Kool-Aid, a loaf of Kos and thou, moonbat, barking in the wilderness”

CinCin donned the Klan robes long ago with her Zionist plot ravings. David Duke has merely affirmed her membership in the “hate the eeeevil jooos” club.

As for who’s under the Klan robes pictured… well, the high heels are a tipoff: CinCin’s too ugly to pretend to wear such and Duke always struck me as a secret tranny.

Maybe you can go compare wardrobes (“Oooo, I like what you’ve done with the look, guys!”–g.b.) with David and Cindy while helping them make more nooses for the eeeeevil joooos.

David | Homepage | 08.31.05 – 10:39 am | #

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Of course, my reply was also a meta-comment attempting to make it clear to the loon that “politeness” in “guests” isn’t necessary, but something approaching some minimally vague connection with real reality (not “reality-based” fantasy) is required.

I have little doubt I failed in that objective since I can only make the comment; I cannot give the loon the wits to comprehend it.

As an aside, the older I get the less able I am to under stand why people would “suffer a fool”—gladly or not. (heh) Maybe it’s just that I have fewer years left to waste now than in the past, though.

PPS: Cao also makes this point in a *ahem!* slighty more direct manner in a September 4 post. Good stuff, Cao.

Thinking on the widely reported New Orleans looting in the aftermath of Katrina, Jerry Pournelle recalls this:

“When I was a lad there was a tornado in Tupelo, Mississippi, and one of the first headlines I can remember (I must have been about 4 at the time) was about National Guard and Army bayoneting and shooting looters. I didn’t understand it, and my father had to explain the headline to me: what looters were, and why it was the job of the Army to stop people like that.

But that was in the 30’s and it would not be politically correct now.”

That was then.  This is now. A witness (well, bystander) to looting:

“To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it’s an opportunity to get back at society… “_1_

Meanwhile, police just stand by.

“…and opportunity to get back at society…”

Spread a Marxist class warfare, zero-sum model of society, inherit a “society” of Vandals.

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

R’Cat seems to think along these same lines: “What the hell are you thinking?? Oh, that’s right – uncivilized barbarians don’t think, they pillage.”

A real SOB story…     

Maybe the mythical “bleeding heart liberal” can get behind a serious national security issue if it’s presented as a real SOB (heh, Save Our Borders) story…  Nah.  The only thing that liberals bleed well is all the hope and life and joy from those they suck dry to feed a nanny state that kills hopes and dreams and lives of the needy while pretending to help them…

But I digress.

“Open Borders”—the words have a ring of liberty, equality, fraternity… but please remember where the last great movement with that catchphrase ended up. As with all great utopian concepts, Open Borders is an idea with many unconsidered (and probably unintended—at least one would hope so)  consequences.

Consider: Public Health.  This article (a pdf) in the spring issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons references a few of the dangers.

“…many illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue, and Chagas disease.”[JAPS, Spring 2005, p. 6]

No thanks.  Close the borders to these sick outlaws, please, Mr. Bush.

If one critical fault, Public Health, isn’t enough, how about more direct threats? This report by Steven A. Camarota, The Open Door: How Militant Islamic Terrorists Entered and Remained in the United States, 1993-2001, lays out the threat of attack loose immigration enforcement encourages. At the time it was written,

“Including the 9/11 hijackers, 48 foreign-born militant Islamic terrorists have been charged, been convicted, pled guilty, or admitted to involvement in terrorism within the United States since 1993…. Not only were 12 of the 48 terrorists illegal aliens when they committed their crimes, at least five others had lived in the country illegally at some point prior to taking part in terrorism… ”

You notice I have not even attempted to outline the problems of illegals burdening our social welfare systems or contributing (and they do) to tight job markets and pressuring wages lower. Those are all old news to anyone who’s been paying attention.

How about pressure on law enforcement and public safety (apart from health and outright terrorism)? Read Heather MacDonald’s “The Illegal Alien Crime Wave”. MS-13, a violent Salvadoran gang made up ,of illegal aliens that preys on other illegal aliens is bit one of many criminal gangs primarily or wholly made up of “outlaw immigrants”.

Scratching the surface, folks.

What to do…

Talk about the problem.  Find out who works in the political “machine” in your locale—precinct, city, county, state—and let ‘em know your concerns.  Take some friends with you, if necessary.  

Organize a petition in your area calling for your local, state and federal pols to get off their fat ass… ets and plug the leaks.

Write your congresscritters.  Call ‘em.  Email em. Fax ‘em. Let ‘em know that unless they get serious about closing our borders to illegal aliens you’ll work for their defeat in the next election.  Tell ‘em to stand up and do their duty or get their doody outa the way.

Join the Save Our Borders BlogBurst. Just “send an email to kit dot jarrell at gmail dot com and put “BlogBurst” in the subject line.” (Stole that line from Cao, ya know.)

Blogs on board (that I know of so far):

Euphoric Reality
TMH’s Bacon Bits
Part-Time Pundit
Social Sense
Cao’s Blog
Ogre’s Politics and Views
In The Bullpen
Ravings of a Mad Tech
third world county
NIF
Kender’s Musings
Gribbit’s Word

A Simple Frittata

As anyone who’s visited one-a my recipe posts via the Carnival of Recipes knows by now, I like simple (as in easy-to-make), tasty, nutritious foods. Here’s a great staple.

• Four eggs
• Four green onions, chopped well (yeh, the tops, whaddaya gonna do throw, all that flavor and nutrition out the door?) No green onions? Leeks or shallots are nice. A little punch? Mince (or use a press) a glove of garlic, as well.
• Bread crumbs, leftover fried potatoes, cooked rice: pick one. About a cup or so of potatoes, ¼ that amount if using bread crumbs or rice.  (More potatoes, please!!!)
• Virgin olive oil (maybe as much as ¼ cup)
• 1 cup Parmigiano, Mozarella or your fav cheese.
• Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
• Balsamic vinegar or pepper/tomato sauce (just use your fav tomato-based pasta sauce and add some steamed-in-the-microwave chopped peppers to taste)

Whisk the eggs. Add the scallions or alternates, bread crumbs or rice, and cheese. If using leftover fried potatoes, add them to the pan first and pour the egg mixture over them.

Heat your cast iron skillet to medium-high heat Pour in the olive oil and wipe the pan’s surface and sides with a multi-folded paper towel. BE CAREFUL!!! DO NOT LET THE PAPER TOWELL  BECOME OIL-SOAKED ENOUGH TO ALLOW YOU TO BURN YOURSELF!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!! (Add potatoes now, if you’re using them) Pour in the egg mixture. Cook over medium-high heat until the frittata is set. Remove the pan from the burner and let the frittata set for a bit.. Cut it into 2-4 ,pieces, depending on how piggish you’re feeling, and drizzle the pieces with balsamic vinegar or your tomato-pepper sauce (Oh, ya might wanna heat the sauce in a separate pan if you’re going that way.). Salt and pepper and eat those puppies!

Other additions/variations:

Have leftover veggies? Add ‘em.
Any kind of sausage, bacon, etc.?  Just make sure it’s appropriately cooked first.
Fav herbs? Try ‘em out!

The variations on this basic frittata are virtually endless.  

Those who can count, and those who can’t.